'And what, if I may ask, is your profession?'
'Architect, in Taxila. No, not famous. Struggling.' He shrugged. 'A struggle I would willingly embrace right now.'
'You are working deceit when teaching Feather Witch.'
He nodded.
'She knows.'
'Yes, but for the moment she can do nothing about it. This part of the fleet is resupplied – we'll not be heading landward for some time, and as for Seven Cities ships to capture, well, the plague's emptied the seas, hasn't it? Besides, we will be sailing west. For now, I'm safe.
And, unless Feather Witch is a lot smarter than I think she is, it will be a long time before she comes to comprehension.'
'How are you managing it?'
'I am teaching her four languages, all at once, and making no distinction among them, not even the rules or syntax. For each word I give her four in translation, then think up bizarre rules for selecting one over another given the context. She's caught me out but once. So. Malazan, the Taxilii Scholar's Dialect, the Ehrlii variant of the common tongue, and, from my grandfather's sister, tribal Rangala.'
'Rangala? I thought that was extinct.'
'Not until she dies, and I'd swear that old hag's going to live for ever.'
'What is your name?'
He shook his head. 'There is power in names – no, I do not distrust you – it is these Tiste Edur. And Feather Witch – if she discovers my name-'
'She can compel you. I understand. Well, in my mind I think of you as the Taxilian.'
'That will suffice.'
'I am Samar Dev, and the warrior I came with is Toblakai… Sha'ik's Toblakai. He calls himself Karsa Orlong.'
'You risk much, revealing your names-'
'The risk belongs to Feather Witch. I surpass her in the old arts. As for Karsa, well, she is welcome to try.' She glanced at him. 'You said we were sailing west?'
He nodded. 'Hanradi Khalag commands just under half the fleet – the rest is somewhere east of here. They have both been sailing back and forth along this coast for some months, almost half a year, in fact.
Like fisher fleets, but the catch they seek walks on two legs and wields a sword. Discovering remnant kin was unexpected, and the state those poor creatures were in simply enraged these Edur. I do not know where the two fleets intend to merge – somewhere west of Sepik, I think. Once that happens,' he shrugged, 'we set a course for their empire.'
'And where is that?'
Another shrug. 'Far away, and beyond that, I can tell you nothing.'
'Far away indeed. I have never heard of an empire of humans ruled by Tiste Edur. And yet, this Letherii language. As you noted it is somehow related to many of the languages here in Seven Cities, those that are but branches from the same tree, and that tree is the First Empire.'
'Ah, that explains it, then, for I can mostly understand the Letherii, now. They use a different dialect when conversing with the Edur – a mix of the two. A trader tongue, and even there I begin to comprehend.'
'I suggest you keep such knowledge to yourself, Taxilian.'
'I will. Samar Dev, is your companion truly the same Toblakai as the one so named who guarded Sha'ik? It is said he killed two demons the night before she was slain, one of them with his bare hands.'
'Until recently,' Samar Dev said, 'he carried with him the rotted heads of those demons. He gifted them to Boatfinder – to the Anibari shaman who accompanied us. The white fur Karsa wears is from a Soletaken. He killed a third demon just outside Ugarat, and chased off another in the Anibar forest. He singlehandedly killed a bhederin bull – and that I witnessed with my own eyes.'
The Taxilian shook his head. 'The Edur Emperor… he too is a demon.
Every cruelty committed by these grey-skinned bastards, they claim is by their Emperor's command. And so too this search for warriors. An emperor who invites his own death – how can this be?'
'I don't know,' she admitted. And not knowing is what frightens me the most. 'As you say, it makes no sense.'
'One thing is known,' the man said. 'Their Emperor has never been defeated. Else his rule would have ended. Perhaps indeed that tyrant is the greatest warrior of all. Perhaps there is no-one, no-one anywhere in this world, who can best him. Not even Toblakai.'
She thought about that, as the huge Edur fleet, filling the seas around her, worked northward, the untamed wilds of the Olphara Peninsula a jagged line on the horizon to port. North, then west, into the Sepik Sea.